Homebody

I am a total homebody. But I didn't realize how very totally a homebody I am until last night when I was walking on the beach path down in Sanur. I was thinking while I walked about Louis's constant travels--just now headed for Jakarta, London, and Japan--and how the very thought was exhausting to me. It seemed very odd that we had ever been together as a married couple, because if there is one characteristic by which she may be described, it is that she likes to travel, while if there is one characteristic that might describe me, it is that I do not.

It occurred to me, then, to consider the places I did like to go when I was younger. What I liked to do was to go camping. That was my idea of travel. Now, to be fair, one must sometimes travel quite a ways to get to where he intends to camp, and yet the notion of "camping" seems to be the key--because the point is not so much to travel as it is to set up a temporary residence  as soon as you arrive at your destination, and then to make that residence homey, to dress it out with a functional kitchen, and a sleeping area; to stock it with wood and water and other necessities, to string up a clothesline for the towels and swimsuits; in short, to find a place for all the various furniture and implements of living and make it as permanent seeming as possible. Home away from home.

This business of merely opening a suitcase for one day between Amsterdam and Osaka is ... well, it's madness! It's stressful. It's exhausting. If I were going to Osaka, I would want to stay there for a while before flying off again. Say a year, perhaps. At least.

Just so, I am a homebody in Bali too. Now that I'm here, I'd just as soon settle in, set up camp, establish a routine.

I've been working on it for the past seven years or so.